magazinesfromthepastfandomcom-20200214-history
Adventure One
Reviews Summary C+VG Issue 7 Writer: Keith Campbell I have been playing Abersoft Adventure supplied by Abersoft of Dyfed, which runs on a Sinclair ZX81 with 16K RAM pack. "Welcome to Adventure" proclaims a flicker-free screen on typing "RUN", and before long we are on the edge of a forest outside a large brick building. Further exploration leads us to a canyon, and eventually to a locked grating. Oh dear — you didn't bring the keys, did you? Never mind — I did, so down the grating we go only to find ourselves in an underground world of caverns, low twisting passages, and a vast chamber with an uncrossable fissure. We have collected en route a small bird, a wicker case, and a black rod. Hang about — we've done this before haven't we? Yes, for all intents and purposes we could be inside a Pyramid of the Tandy variety. For black rod read sceptre, for small bird read bird-statue and for wicker cage read statue box. Those of us who are well travelled now know how to cross the fissure, find torch batteries etc. What I didn't mention when I received the Tandy game is that Pyramid is itself an abridged and modified version of the original Adventure. So for sceptre read wand. Could be useful for there are things you would expect to do with a wand but not necessarily with a sceptre or rod. Although not an original plot it has certainly survived well! What's it like on a Sinclair? I found it — typing apart — better than on a Tandy as the screen is cleared rather than scrolled, making it, for me anyway, less confusing. One small criticism is that the inventory is retained when the game is re-run. Consequently you can grab things, quit, and then cheat! Nevertheless, it is pleasing to see full size Adventures — in micro terms — being made available to thousands of Sinclair owners. My thanks to Mrs. Pam Bryan of Southlands School, New Romney, for the loan of her computer for this review. Sinclair User Issue 2 Writer: Phil Garratt The logical program to start with is the Abersoft Adventure, which attempts openly to pack as much of the Crowther and Woods' original into 16K as possible. As I was usually hopelessly lost in the maze in the Adventure at work. I was hoping that perhaps lack of memory had forced them to omit the maze from the Sinclair version. Not a chance; on the first attempt I went straight into it like a homing pigeon. The maze seems like quicksand; the more you struggle to escape the deeper you sink. At that point I asked a friend who had acquired a good knowledge of the original Adventure to try from the beginning. She found that all the locations and objects were in the correct places, although the location descriptions were shorter. She even discovered a new area she had not entered previously. The program is written in 13K of machine code and 1½K of Basic, with more than 70 words which can be recognised as commands or objects, and a large number of locations. The game has been written with remarkable efficiency; location descriptions are built-up from individual words and phrases rather than stored en bloc. Being machine code, the program is very fast. At any time you can find your score and also save your current position on tape to continue later. At £10, it is an expensive program but it is a remarkably good version of the original Adventure and well worth the money if you want to see what sparked the entire process. Your Computer Issue 10 Writer: Eric Deeson Abersoft's Basic adventure is over-priced at £10. This is text only and probably requires the usual million hours to untangle. It just fits into 16K and seems to be based on the classic Crowther Fortran version, with 140 locations to map and explore. Category:ZX81 Games Category:Spectrum Games Category:C+VG Reviews Category:Abersoft Category:Sinclair User Reviews Category:ZX Computing Reviews